Tonight – Koenji Awaodori – Hisagoren

The biggest mainland Awaodori festival of the year is taking place right now at Koenji. The massive Koenji festival attracts almost a million visitors and features over 10 000 dancers and musicians in one of the most epic festivals of the year here in Tokyo. Starting at 1700 these days (but with plenty of sporadic dancing from around noon to 1600 during the day as well) you get a good view of the teams in daylight as well as dusk and evening. I took these photos of the Hisagoren (ひさご連) at yesterday’s festival. Especially the chibi dancers up front were as cute as buttons!

Tonight will be even better as the teams give their best for the final show. Since this is the biggest event for many teams around Japan many of them have been training hard especially for this night, so if you are in Tokyo and don’t mind the heat and the crowds, go over there and cheer them on!